


Black Mirror

by effingbirds



Series: The Underground [2]
Category: South Park
Genre: Holocaust, M/M, WWII AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 05:17:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effingbirds/pseuds/effingbirds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A companion fic to The Well and the Lighthouse, telling Kyle's story from the Warsaw Ghetto to freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

A/N: This is a companion fic of sorts to my SPBB fic, The Well and the Lighthouse. You don't have to read that to enjoy this one, but later events might get a little confusing if you don't. Maybe. Anyway, warnings for... you know... the Holocaust. I'm not going to pull punches here.

Prologue

I was working at the hospital on the day the Germans began their invasion. I was not a doctor yet, at least not formally, but I had been working on my residency for nearly a year, and the hospital had become my home away from home. When the bombing of Warsaw began, we all took cover as best we could, but it wasn't to last. We were soon inundated with hundreds of wounded civilians, bleeding and broken. The waiting room was full of people missing limbs, men and women gushing blood all over the floor, mothers screaming as their babies died in their arms, and the bombs continued to fall around us, shaking the building and making the lights flicker. I barely held myself together during my shift. Though some experience with emergency situations was required for all medical students, most of my education had been in pediatrics, so I was completely out of my element, up to my elbows, literally and figuratively, in blood and gore.

It was a great relief when, after nearly 30 straight hours at the hospital, I was sent home, with the understanding that I must return after I'd rested. It was nearly midday when I left the hospital and made my way through the streets of Warsaw. The city was in chaos, people running around trying to find out whatever information they could, looking for lost family members and friends, while soldiers rushed by in full uniform, holding their rifles in their hands. I felt overwhelmed by all the commotion, and was glad it was a short walk to the apartment I shared with my parents and brother.

The situation at home wasn't much better. The moment I walked in the door my mother bombarded me with questions, to which I had no answers. I brushed her off, and went to sulk in the bedroom my brother and I shared, too exhausted from my shift at the hospital to deal with her hysterics.

We knew what an invasion meant for us, of course. If the Germans "annexed" Poland, my family and I would be in great danger. Anti-Semitism had always been a problem for the Jews of Poland, but in Warsaw we were somewhat protected from all that. Sure, we all ran into trouble from time to time, but it was nothing compared to what we'd heard was happening in Germany. At least under the Polish government we still had rights. The same could not be said for Jews living under German law.

I tried to put that out of my mind as I threw myself onto my bed, and I was almost asleep when my brother Ike sneaked into the bedroom. I ignored him, but I felt his eyes upon me as he sat down on my bed, and after a few silent minutes I rolled over to look at him.

"Are you ok?" he asked, looking uncharacteristically serious.

"Yeah," I said, my voice rough with exhaustion, "Are you?"

He shrugged and looked away, staring out of the window with a pensive look upon his face.

"They're talking about sending me away," he said, finally.

"What?" I gasped, sitting up. Ike refused to look at me.

"I'm not... you know... my real parents, they weren't Jewish. I don't look like a Jew. Mom and dad seem to think they can get me some forged papers, and send me across to France, to live with some people they know."

I stared at him silently for a minute, a mixture of emotions rushing through my head. There was anger, to be sure, and from the way Ike was looking at me I'm sure that's what he was afraid of. But I was also concerned for him. We had never really discussed the fact that he was adopted, but I knew there had always been times in which he hadn't really felt like a part of the family. And now he was being sent away, because he looked nothing like us.

"I suppose it wasn't even suggested that I go with you?" I asked, hesitantly.

"Kyle, please," he said, smiling finally, "Have you looked in the mirror? Red hair alone is not enough to make you look like a goy. I mean, have you seen your nose?"

"Alright, Ike," I said, my anger quickly resurfacing.  
"And you're scrawny, and you wear glasses, and you're in intellectual. Need I go on? You might as well walk around with a giant Star of David painted on your head. You're practically a walking stereotype."

"Yeah, ok, I get it, I will never be able to pass as anything but Jewish. Ok."

He grinned at me as I glared at him, and I laid back down with a huff. I was surprised when he laid down beside me. We hadn't shared a bed since we were very young, and I watched him curiously as he made himself comfortable next to me, reaching over cautiously to put his hand on my shoulder.

"I'm scared," he said in that very straightforward manner of his. I had always liked his ability to speak what was on his mind, but at times like this it was unnerving, because everyone else was trying to dance around the truth.

"Of what? Being sent away to safety?" I asked, jealously.

He rolled his eyes and patted my head condescendingly.

"Yes, Kyle, of being sent away to safety. Terrifying. No. Traveling to France alone? What if I don't make it through the border? What if the Nazis figure out that my papers are fake, and whoops, there I go, off to some labor camp?"

"You're smart," I said, "I'm sure if you run into trouble you'll be able to get out of it."

"Yeah, but... you know... I'm worried about you, too. And mom and dad. What will happen to you? If it's bad enough that I'm being sent away, then whatever's in store for you guys isn't really something I want you to have to go through."

My heart was racing as he said this, but I had always tried to put on a brave face for my brother.

"We'll be ok," I said as I closed my eyes once more, knowing full well that nothing was going to be ok once Poland surrendered.

I'm sure Ike saw right through my lie, but he patted me on the shoulder, before leaving me to sleep.

He was gone before the week was over.

Warsaw surrendered not too long after that, and we knew our fate, whatever it may be, was sealed.


	2. Chapter 2

The truth of the matter is that nothing I tell you can even begin to express the despair and misery in which my people, and the other victims of the Nazi regime, lived. I can try, of course, and I will, because I feel as though it's important. But unless you were there... unless you saw the corpses littering the streets, the piles of refuse, and the children digging through them for scraps of food, unless you felt the blows aimed at you by the Germans for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and felt the terror of not knowing if you'd live for another day, there's no real way you can completely understand how it felt to be there, living in the Warsaw Ghetto.

We knew from the start that it would be bad, of course. From the moment the Germans took over they began to impose restrictions upon us. We had to wear an armband with a Star of David on it at all times, to clearly mark us as Jews. More than anything this marked us as targets for the German soldiers and Polish citizens alike. Suddenly we had no rights, and they could do to us whatever they pleased. Jews all over Warsaw suddenly became victims of beatings, robberies, rape, and forced work, with no options for retribution. Fighting back only earned you a bullet in the head. There were no longer any laws left to protect us. So what were we to do?

Then, suddenly, we were barred from going to the movies, eating at most restaurants, and shopping in most stores. Signs popped up everywhere informing us as to how unwelcome we were.

Next the laws came which barred us from owning businesses, and most Jews were forced out of work. I was fortunate that doctors were allowed to continue working, but I was still a student, and had yet to earn my license. The hospital in which I had been working saw no option but to release me, but I managed to pick up work at the Jewish hospital, which is one of the only reasons I survived my time in the ghetto.

My father was equally lucky. He lost his job as a lawyer, but managed to secure a position in the Judenrat, the Jewish council that governed Jewish life in Warsaw, under the command of the Germans. He despised working for them, but his only other option was unemployment, which lead to certain death. It was through his connections that I got my job at the hospital, and, after we were confined to the ghetto and being employed became a necessity for survival, my mother found work in the post office. We were very fortunate, but even the privileged suffered once the walls of the ghetto went up.

It was in autumn of 1940 when we heard we'd be rounded up and moved into a tiny part of Warsaw, not nearly large enough to hold the city's Jewish population, much less the refugees from other parts of Poland that were constantly streaming into the city. There had been rumors of a ghetto before, but the confirmation of those rumors was still a rather devastating blow. We had heard what had happened to the Jews of Lodz in their "resettlement"; mass shootings, disease, and starvation, and we all hoped that we could avoid the same fate.

In retrospect our optimism seems rather foolish, but it was the only thing we had left to keep us going.

Our apartment was not within the confines of the ghetto, and as such, we knew we would have to move. And once word got out that our neighborhood was to be a part of the "Aryan" area of the city, we were inundated with people hoping to take over our apartment. Some offered swaps for crummy rooms that were within the future ghetto's walls, while others simply made demands, threatening us with beatings if we did not comply. We managed to fight everyone off to bide our time, until the day a German officer came to our door.

My mother and I were the only ones home when he arrived, coming through the door without knocking or announcing himself in any way. One minute we were in the kitchen, discussing our options, and the next thing we knew there was an SS officer standing in the doorway, examining the room with a look of boredom on his face.

"I think this will do," he said to a man following him, who I assumed to be his valet.

We stared at him in shocked silence as he examined the kitchen cabinets, unsure as to what he meant, or what we should do. Finally he turned to us.

"You have 30 minutes to get out," he said, sneering at us, "You may take no furniture, only your personal items."

Most people in our situation would have kept their mouth shut, complying in the subservient manner that the Nazis expected from Jews. My mother was not most people.

"Now wait just a minute!" she said, "The deadline to move into the ghetto hasn't come yet, and this is still our apartment!"

The officer regarded her calmly, before walking across the kitchen floor toward her, pulling his gun out during his approach. I could only stand by in mute horror as he hit her with it, and kicked her repeatedly in the stomach and face after she collapsed on the floor. I wanted to shout at him, to run at him with my fists flying, but I knew that would be the last mistake I ever made. The man rained blows upon her until she stopped moving, and then stepped back, calmly straightening his jacket.

"Now you have 10 minutes," he said, turning to me with a smile, "I suggest you collect your belongings and your useless whore mother before I shoot you both."

Nine minutes and 55 seconds later I was making my way down the stairs, with as many bags as I could carry slung across my shoulders, and my mother leaning against me for support, sobbing and moaning from the pain.

We slowly made our way to her sister's apartment down the street, where I left her in my cousin's care before making my way back to my father's office to relay the bad news. He took it in stride, as he did most things, saying we would have to stay with my mother's family until we found a place within the future ghetto, or until we ran out of time. He then sent me on my way, telling me to look after my mother's wounds, which, of course, I would have done anyway.

Being evicted with no warning was bad enough, but what it really meant to us was that we'd lost our bargaining chip. We needed every advantage we could get if we were to survive, and we had all hoped that we could trade our apartment for a decent place to stay, instead of having nothing to offer. Losing that put us at a distinct disadvantage, and as the days wore on, I could see the worry in my parents' expressions as the likelihood of finding somewhere to live was growing slimmer and slimmer. A solution did not present itself until two days before the deadline, when I ran into a friend of mine on the street.

I had met Rebekah Cotswold during her brother Mark's brief stint in public education. How he had convinced his very religious parents to allow him to attend public school was beyond me, but one afternoon I had gone to his apartment to study with him, and that was where I met Rebekah. She was pretty, and intelligent, and I was drawn to her immediately. I had been the first boy to kiss her, long before I realized that chaste kisses were as far as I ever wanted to go with girls. It was years later, when I kissed her brother, that I realized why. I later lost my virginity to him, though I never told Rebekah that. She simply assumed that he and I were good friends.

I always enjoyed her company, although recent events had changed her normal jittery disposition into full-on anxiety.

"How are you doing?" I asked as I approached her, and she glanced around nervously, biting her lip.

"Fine, just fine," she said, rather unconvincingly, "Is your family moved yet?"

"Ah, no, we're still looking for a place. My father and I have been busy with work, and I think my mother believes if she just keeps putting it off, it won't really happen."

"Yeah, it's hard to believe this is all really happening," she said, still watching the people pass us on the street with a fair amount of distress, "What about Ike? What's he doing?"

"Oh, uh, this and that. He's pretty busy too. How's Mark?"

"Fine, fine," she said distractedly, "I'd better be going, though. Don't want to get into trouble."

She glanced significantly at the band stitched to her sleeve, and I nodded. Lingering on the streets was simply asking for trouble if you wore the Star of David on your arm.

We made our goodbyes, and I didn't expect anything to come of our brief meeting, so I was surprised the next day when Mark stopped by our temporary home.

I was concerned when I opened the door to the apartment to reveal him, thinking perhaps he was bearing bad news about his sister, or something. But he laughed at the look on my face, and slapped me on the arm.

"Nothing to worry about," he said, smiling, "But my parents sent me to discuss something with your family."

I nodded, though my fears were not allayed, and let him in.

"I have an offer to make you," he said, after my father, mother, and I sat down at the kitchen table with him, "I understand you are working for the Judenrat?" he said, addressing my father.

"Yes," he answered warily.

"I assume, then, that you might be granted certain... protections?"

"We live under the same laws that you do, Mark."

"Of course," Mark said, "But, for example, both you and Kyle have jobs. And the impression I've gotten is that those who work for the Judenrat were privy to certain information before the general public. Deportations, that sort of thing."

"Sometimes, yes, but... well I'm not sure what you're getting at," my father replied.

"I think we could help each other. My family has a spare room in their flat. You'd all have to share, unfortunately, but that seems to be the way things are going, anyway. And our flat is nicer than most of the ones you'll find this close to the deadline. My parents think they'd benefit from having two employed men living there, especially if one works for the Judenrat. Perhaps if you hear of a job opening you could help me and my father out, for example. In exchange you'd have a decent room in a decent apartment, as opposed to the hovels I've seen filling up with multiple families. So, it's a win-win. There wouldn't be room for your extended family, though."

"They've already found a place," my mother said before glancing at my father to gauge his interest in the offer.

My uncle had found a room the previous week, and in his search he'd found that what Mark was saying was true; most of the rooms left were small and filthy. He ended up agreeing to a 10 x 10 room for the four of them, in a flat that had no electricity, and shared a bathroom with the entire floor of the building. I'd spent a great deal of time at the Cotswolds', and it was a decent size, and very modern. Not that that would matter down the line.

"I think it's a good idea," I said, knowing that without some kind of a push my parents would keep holding out for more luxurious accommodations, which they would never find. I, for one, didn't want to end up living in some cramped room with a dozen strangers, much less on the streets.

My father gave me a look, apparently not appreciating my input, and then sighed heavily before burying his face in his hands.

"Ok," he mumbled.

"Great!" Mark said, getting to his feet, "I'll go inform my parents, then. They said you can move in tomorrow, if you accepted our offer."

He held out his hand, which my father shook, and then I showed him to the door.

"It's going to be weird, you know... living with you," I ventured, because despite having slept with each other on occasion when we were teenagers, we had never been anything more than friends. As far as I knew he was still dating a man he'd met a few years ago at the synagogue.

"We could share a room, if that would be better than sharing with your parents," he said.

I'm sure the blush that rose to his cheeks was matched by my own.  
"I don't mean it that way," he said, quietly enough that my parents wouldn't overhear, "Just, you know... you might be more comfortable."

"Of course," I said.

"One of our cousins will be staying in Rebekah's room, so the flat will be a bit cramped. I think we can all manage it, though. But... they don't... no one in my family knows about me, you know," he said, leaning in close.

"Ike's the only one I've ever told," I said, realizing in that moment just how much I missed him. He was a pain in the ass sometimes, but he was the only person I'd ever trusted with my secrets. I hoped, wherever he was, that he was doing ok.

"Where is he, anyway?" Mark asked, "Rebekah said you seemed nervous when she asked..."

"I'll tell you later. He won't be coming with us, though."

Mark gave me a suspicious look, before smiling.  
"Ok. Well, I'll see you tomorrow, then," and with that he made his way down the hall.

Though I was glad my parents had finally agreed to something, and that our accommodations would be better than many others', I was still understandably upset about what was to come. Though many of the people I knew believed the lies the Nazis fed us, I most definitely did not. I knew what was coming was going to be bad. But even I had no idea just how bad it would be.

Since our brutal eviction the previous week had left us with few possessions, we had nothing to pack. So we simply joined the streams of Jews moving through the streets, with all their worldly possessions in their arms or in carts, and made our way into the ghetto. The sheer amount of people trying to find some space within the walls of the ghetto was overwhelming to me, and I was very glad when we reached the Cotswolds' apartment, where we were welcomed with open arms.

The next day the walls were sealed behind us, and most of the people contained within them would never know freedom again. We would all do the best we could to get by, but out of the nearly 400,000 of us living under the cramped, crowded conditions, only a handful would survive. It was only through sheer luck that I was one of them.


	3. Chapter 3

Life in the ghetto was dehumanizing, at best. The worst thing was walking down the street and seeing children, mostly orphans, laying or sitting around like tiny skeletons, starved to the point where they didn't even look human anymore. At first I did whatever I could to help them – give them scraps of food, or any spare clothing I had – but as time went on the survival of myself and my family became more of a priority. It was the same for everyone. It seemed as if the supply of starving children increased exponentially, but compassion toward fellow human beings began to run dry as we all found ourselves in life or death situations. Handing out food to orphans might not seem like a huge sacrifice, but after a while very few people had anything to spare. Giving handouts one day might mean starving to death the next, and we all seemed to lose our consciences as fear took over.

Children were not the only victims, of course. There were many people living on the streets, each growing thinner and more ragged by the day. It was not uncommon to step over bodies of the deceased as you walked down the street, and after only a short amount of time in the ghetto, most people learned to ignore the remains of these casualties. There was a sense among the general population that if you did not block out what was really happening, you would go mad. So these corpses soon became just another dismal part of the background, carted off each morning to a mass grave in the cemetery, only to be replaced with new corpses on the street by the next day.

There were, of course, small bits of humanity peering out from behind the wall of despair. There were soup kitchens, for example, which were supplied almost entirely by the small children who sneaked across the barricade to the Aryan side of the wall to smuggle food into the ghetto. And there were those who tried to keep our culture alive, running illegal newpapers, schools, even organizing symphonies. If you knew where to look, it was possible to seem small glimmers of of hope, and despite everything there were still good people around.

One of my favorite people in the ghetto was a man known as Pan Doktor, who ran an orphanage, and with whom I had the pleasure of working in my spare time. Within months of moving into the ghetto, my parents and the Cotswolds had agreed to allow two more families to move into our apartment, and it had become so unbearably cramped that I spent as little time at home as I could. So when I was not working at the hospital, I often found myself entertaining the children at the orphanage, and offering whatever medical services I could provide with my limited resources. My life was as far from ideal as it could be, but my time spent helping others was likely the only thing that kept me sane.

X

Despite having the most resources available to him, my father was the first victim of the ghetto in our apartment, about five months after we'd been living there.

I came home from the hospital one day to find my mother sitting in the kitchen, looking nervous.

"Your father is in bed," she said, "Go see if you can help him."

He was asleep on the mattress on the floor, and when I approached him he opened his eyes blearily at me, staring in confusion.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, sitting next to him on the mattress. He looked clammy and uncomfortable. He stared at me for a moment, and then sighed regretfully.

"I know what's wrong with me, Kyle, and I think you do too," he said, taking my hand and placing it over his forehead. He was burning up.

When he pushed his open shirt aside, I could see that he had rosy spots on his chest, and his stomach looked distended. All symptoms of Typhoid Fever.

"Fuck," I muttered, pulling his shirt closed.

"Language, Kyle," he said mildly, and when I glanced at his face he was laying back, looking almost corpse-like. I tried to shake that thought from my head, with no success.

"Do you want to go to the hospital?" I asked, getting to my feet.

"Can they do anything for me?"

"No... not really. Nothing I couldn't do here at home, anyway," I said, honestly. There was very little that could be done about Typhoid Fever anyway, without the right resources, none of which we had in the ghetto. Either he'd get better, or he'd die. That's all there was to it.

"I'd rather stay here," he said, "Dying in a crowded hospital room seems undignified."

"You might not die. It's not always fatal," I said, but he just shook his head.

A week later, he was gone.

X

The weeks blurred into each other for quite some time. I think anyone who has experienced a great loss knows what I mean when I talk about the mindless blur that time becomes when you're consumed with grief. Nothing seems real, and when you look back at that period at a later date, you can't remember much of what happened. It's as though your brain just shuts itself off.

I know I was still working at the hospital, and I know I was still volunteering at the orphanage, but otherwise most of what took place during a great part of that year is just a blur to me.

My mother took to praying a lot, which I thought was ridiculous, since God had obviously forsaken us.

When we had any time alone, which was rare, I allowed Mark to give me comfort in the only way he could. I didn't love him, nor did he love me, but a few moments of mindless bliss was a welcome reprieve from the devastation that continued to escalate around us.

Life went on, sort of. New residents were being shipped in on a daily basis, and the overcrowding would have been unbearable, except that more and more people died every day. A brisk round of Typhus went through the ghetto, killing more people than I can count. It was yet another thing we could not treat at the hospital, which made my job more and more frustrating.

And if the Typhus didn't kill you, you were lucky if you didn't starve to death. Sometimes you'd see the same people on the street for weeks on end, growing thinner and thinner as time went on. There was one man who sticks out in my mind. When he moved to the ghetto he had a wife and four children. The wife died of some disease, and after that the man spent all of his time on the street with his children, begging for help and singing, "Ich dank dir Got, az ich bin a Yid." I thank God that I am a Jew.

One by one his children died of starvation, and he was left alone. His suffering was unbearable to me, but there was nothing that could be done.

It wasn't as if we didn't all have our share of problems. The people living in our apartment began to drop like flies. Typhus killed half of them, and several others were shot by the SS for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The dead were often replaced by new people who were searching for a place to stay, but many of them died as well. Of the original 16 people who had been living in the flat, only Mark, Rebecca, my mother, and I remained.

The day Rebecca was shot was one of the most difficult of my life, at least up to that point. I was working at the hospital when she was brought in, but I hadn't even known she was there until I found her bleeding out on the floor of a hallway. I did everything I could to save her, but it was no good. Despite my good intentions she died in my arms, with a stream of blood painting her face. I was heartbroken. And I had to be the one to bring Mark the bad news.

It went as badly as could be expected. She was his only remaining family, after all, and they had been very close their whole lives. Still, life in the ghetto was so awful that there was an underlying feeling of relief, and maybe even jealousy. Death had become seen as a welcome escape from our misery, and there were many who sought it out just to end their suffering.

"I want to be with her," Mark said to me, and though I understood why, I held him back from doing anything rash. His sorrow turned to anger, and we ended up having sex so violent that I was left bleeding from it. Still, I felt so guilty that she had died in my own hospital that I didn't complain.

It was only a few weeks later that I came home to find my mother looking despondent, and though any number of things could have been wrong, I had a gut feeling as to what the matter was.

"Mark's been killed," she said, "One of my friends saw it happen. He was forced to clear a street with some other men, and when they were finished the SS officers lined them all up against a wall and opened fire on them. There was no reason for it..." she trailed off, staring at the wall as if it had answers for her. I knew she was thinking that the same could happen to me some day.

I realized at that point how very old she looked. Living in the ghetto had aged her so much in such a short time span, and my heart hurt to see her looking so worn down. I know the loss of my father was the biggest blow for her, and she had never really recovered from it. I was all she had left, and I didn't know if she'd survive if she lost me, too.

I took the news about Mark as well as could be expected, and I spent the rest of the day in the bed we'd shared, clutching his pillow and feeling sorry for myself. Having him around had been a great comfort to me, and I would miss him very much. Still, none of it surprised me. I half-expected to have the same fate as him, as many of the boys our age had been eliminated in such a manner. There was no rhyme or reason to the Nazis' treatment of those of us in the ghetto... Death would come to all of us one way or another, so perhaps it was best to take such a blasé approach to it.

Some time in July of 1942, the rumors began to spread that the Nazis were to eliminate us all, once and for all. Some scoffed at this idea, since many people in the Warsaw ghetto were used as slave labor in the factories, including those that supplied the Nazi war machine, but many of us believed it. After all, wasn't that what they'd slowly been doing to us all along? There was talk of escaping to the Aryan side of the wall, but few considered it a real option, as Jews who were caught over there were shot immediately.

It wasn't much safer in the ghetto, though. In the weeks leading up to the deportations, the SS men went from building to building, shooting down entire families as they pleased. It was the so-called "intelligentsia" that was targeted most: teachers, lawyers, businessmen, and even doctors. The Nazis wanted to create panic and confusion within the ghetto, and it worked very well. I remember running home from work every day, terrified that I'd find nothing but corpses in my apartment.

It was somewhere around this time that notices started to go up, telling us we would be "resettled" somewhere out East. If we went voluntarily to the Umschlagplatz, the place at which we would be loaded onto the trains, we would be given 2 kilos of bread and 1 kilo of jam, if these promises were to be believed. Apparently the Nazis were betting that our desperate hunger would make us stupid. But those who didn't go voluntarily would be forced to go anyway, so there were some who took them up on their offer.

Hospital staff was exempted, which was only a small relief to me, since I knew it was only a matter of time before we would no longer be useful. Factory workers also had a temporary respite, and thousands of people scrambled to get a job, and to get the right paperwork that would supposedly save them. The rules changed every day, and it was so difficult to keep up with them that even though who had valid employment would often end up on the trains. It was unsettling to see the once-crowded streets become emptier by the day, as more and more buildings were completely cleared out, their residents sent off or shot, and their belongings looted or scattered about like refuse.

There were rumors of a resistance movement, which gave us all hope, despite the fact that we all knew what our ultimate fate would be. We didn't know where these deportations were actually taking people, but we all knew the claims of resettlement were nothing but a ruse.

Throughout the entire time I'd spent in the ghetto, I'd resolved myself to never give up. These Nazi bastards wanted to break all our spirits, and despite everything I'd gone through, I fought as hard as I could not to let that happen to me. It was in August that I finally broke.

On August 5th, the orphanage at which I had volunteered was surrounded by SS men, and Pan Doktor and his staff were notified that they were to be deported. Instead of letting on that he knew what would happen, he told the children in his care that they would be going on a trip to the countryside, leaving the barren wasteland of the ghetto for green fields. He had them all dress in their finest clothes, and he went with them to the Umschlagplatz, maintaining the calm, kind demeanor for which he had become known. He was offered sanctuary several times, as he was actually a well-known author of childrens' books, but he refused each time, saying that he would not abandon the children. They were all loaded onto the trains together, never to be heard from again.

I was depressed from this, but it was nothing compared to what happened only a few days later.

Anyone who remained in the ghetto was ordered to stay at their places of work at all times. I worked, ate, and slept at the hospital, but like many people, I would often sneak out at night to visit people and ferry around supplies. Usually I would go to the factory at which my mother had been hired after she lost her previous job. One night, she was gone. I frantically asked around, but was ignored by nearly everyone. That was typical of life in the ghetto, as there were often panicked family members screaming into peoples' faces about the fate of their relatives. Finally one of my mother's friends pulled me aside and told me what happened.

Earlier that day, the SS had made the usual rounds of all the factories. They rounded up dozens of people at random, as they were wont to do, and took them into the courtyard and shot them. My mother was one of the day's victims.

The woman who told me this seemed sympathetic, but I walked away from her without even saying anything. I don't remember going back to the hospital, but I awoke the next morning on the cot on which I usually slept, my face a teary mess, and my fingers bloody from where I'd bitten my nails off.

I was done. There was nothing left for me in Warsaw, and though I didn't know what would await me at the other end of the railroad tracks, I went to the Umschlagplatz on my own, ready to embrace resettlement, or death, or whatever I might have coming to me.

The car they loaded us into was full to the brim with people. Once it was full the doors were shut, and the windows were barred, but we remained at the station for several hours, locked up tightly. It was so hot and stuffy that none of us could breathe properly, and there was no room for any of us to sit down, either. I was crushed against a wall, pushed and crowded by those who were trying to get some fresh air through the cracks in the wood panels. I didn't care. I had a pretty good idea as to what would happen to us, and I didn't even struggle anymore.

As the train finally pulled away from the station, I heard the old man's voice in my head: "Ich dank dir Got, az ich bin a Yid."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, what to say about this chapter? I hope I did a good job of balancing what really happened in the Warsaw Ghetto and making it at least moderately entertaining? Nothing I could write can even begin to do this situation justice, but if you're interested in the subject matter, my main resource for information was a book called Words to Outlive Us, which is a collection of first-hand accounts about the ghetto. The story of Pan Doktor (whose real name was Janusz Korczak) is true, as is the one of the man who sang "Ich dank dir Got, as ich bin a Yid." I tried make everything else as historically accurate as possible.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

We were stuck on the train for three solid days, waiting, waiting, waiting. I was impatient, as I often was, and as time wore on my nonchalance toward my impending doom wore off, and I became anxious once more. There was talk amongst my follow “passengers” as to where we would end up. Many believed the lies they were told about resettlement, and spoke optimistically about our destination. I was irritated by their stupidity. Though I had no idea what horrors awaited us at the time, I was sure that it would not be some lovely pastoral setting, as many seemed to hope. The Nazis didn't want us to till their fields, or run their factories, or whatever these people believed. They wanted us dead. I tried to be nice about the whole thing, I really did, because having worked as a doctor I understood that sometimes people just needed to hold onto whatever hope they had. But it seemed ignorant to me, and I would rather prepare myself for the worst, rather than cling to fantasies. 

But of course, as our journey went on, with many long delays that saw our cars stopped for hours in the heat, people began to lose their hope. There wasn't a place in which we could relieve ourselves, so we were forced to squat in a dark corner and try not to soil the shoes of those around us. No one could lay down to sleep because there wasn't enough space, and many people became delirious if they were unable to sleep standing up, or leaning on a wall or a neighbor. Those who fell were usually trampled to death.

Worse than the indignity and exhaustion was the lack of food and water. A person can go days without food, although those who were already starving to death from their time in the ghetto were significantly less hardy, but no water? In a train car parked in the hot sun, crowded with a hundred people standing elbow to elbow and no air circulation, dehydration was quick to kill.

As people became corpses, our instincts from the ghetto kicked in, and we coordinated together to move them to one side, stacking them as best we could against a wall. It might sound horrible, but it gave the survivors a little more space, for which we were all grateful... Until the dead had their revenge with their stench, and the flies they attracted. 

When we finally reached our destination my heart froze in terror, but I was relieved, too. I was ready to flee the hot, smelly Hell on wheels I'd inhabited for three days. Had I only known then what I know now.

The departing “passengers” blink in the harsh sunlight, their eyes so used to the dim light of the train car. There is a little station house, and above it is a sign that says “Treblinka”. There is no time to take this in, however, because as soon as you exit the car, the officers begin to yell at you.

“Out! Everybody out! Leave the heavy baggage! It will be delivered later!”

I had brought no possessions with me, and so while some were fretting over their belongings, I simply climb out of the car, hoping for fresh air, but the air is anything but fresh. It smells like the streets of the Warsaw ghetto, a hundredfold. The stench of death makes me freeze in my tracks, but the crowd behind me shoves me along.

There are men with whips and pistols directing us, and we pass through a gate, into a square with wooden barracks on either side. We are all forced to strip, right there in the square, men and women alike. Everyone is shaking with nerves, eying each other with apprehension. The children begin to cry, and so do some of the adults, although they are admonished by their neighbors, because everyone still wants to pretend that things will be ok. The women who are reluctant to strip are attacked by guards, who tear their clothing off them as they scream and try to shield their bodies. Everyone averts their eyes. Then the men are sent to the right, and women and children to the left. Nobody knows what any of this means.

A guard walks by me and orders me to the side, tells me to get dressed again. Who am I to argue when he's waving a gun around? I grab my clothing and hat from the pile I'd thrown them in, and hastily put them back on again. The man yells something in German that I don't quite catch to another man who is wearing the Star of David on his sleeve. A Jew, but he clearly works for these people, and he waves me toward him. I go without hesitation, glad to be free from the chaos of the crowds.

“You're lucky,” the man says to me in Yiddish, “But not that lucky, I suppose, since you are here.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, struggling to keep up with him as he leads me away.

“Sergeant Schiffner has been looking for a housekeeper. You are to work for him.”

“Housekeeper? What?”

The man stops abruptly in his tracks and turns to me sharply.

“Can you clean?” he asks.

“Well, yes.”

“Do laundry? Relay messages? Cook?”

I hesitated, “I don't know much about cooking, to be honest.”

“Well, you'd better learn, Red, or you'll meet the same fate as the others.”

Of course, I had no idea what that meant yet, but it was ominous enough that when he stalked off again, I hurried behind him.

I was led to what looked like some sort of administration building, and locked into the basement with no explanation. I wasn't too happy to be shut back into a dark space after three days on that God-forsaken train, but at least it was cool and quiet down there. I found a rickety-looking cot in the corner, and decided to try and sleep while I waited for whatever I was waiting for.

I was awoken some time later when someone kicked the cot over, knocking me onto the floor.

There was a man standing in front of me, and when I looked up and realized that he was an SS officer, I quickly got to my feet, taking off my hat and keeping my eyes on the ground, as we were supposed to do.

“Good,” he said, but I still didn't look up, “Upstairs, now.”

I followed him and he showed me around his small apartment, pointing out things like the broom closet, and where the pots and pans were hung. I was furious and humiliated at being reduced to some kind of housewife. I was a doctor, not a servant! But arguing with an SS officer produced the same results every time, and in the last few days I'd regained my will to live, if only out of spite for the people who had done this to me. So I didn't argue, because I didn't want to die. I just did as I was told, and hoped it would be good enough to earn another day of life. Maybe if I was lucky this man would choke to death on something I cooked. One can always hope.

A routine was quickly established. The Sergeant left the apartment fairly early in the morning, and I was expected to have his breakfast ready before he left. Then I cleaned, made his bed, did laundry, so on and so forth. He'd given me all the necessary supplies, including a cookbook, which was fortunate since I really had no idea how to cook before I left Warsaw. Usually I was allowed to eat the leftovers, so I always made a bit extra to keep myself well fed, although my cooking tasted horrible to me when compared to the delicious meals my mother had once made. I tried not to think about it. 

When the Sergeant came back in the evening, he expected me to make myself scarce, which was fine by me. After making sure he had everything he needed, I'd retreat down to the basement and hide out there until the next morning. 

I felt I'd lost my whole identity working for him. They'd shaved my head to prevent the spreading of lice. I had wanted my whole life to work as a doctor, and here I was shining some German bastard's muddy boots. I rarely saw anyone but him, and I felt too much like some spoiled little prince to associate with the other inmates when I'd leave the SS officers' barracks. Hell, the Sergeant even referred to me as either, “Jew,” or, “Boy,” and everyone else called me, “Red,” so it was as if Kyle Broflovski didn't exist anymore.

I was mostly left alone, but occasionally the Sergeant would come down to the basement and beat me until I could hardly stand. It was never provoked by anything I could see, and I was always expected to carry out my duties a usual, even with my face bruised and my body aching. But despite the black eyes and bloody noses I'd wind up with, I felt relatively lucky. I'd learned very quickly what was going on in the other parts of the camp, and it was worse than I had thought.

Had I not been selected to be a servant, I would have been sent into a chamber with fake shower heads in the ceiling. Then great engines would have pumped carbon monoxide into the chamber, and I would have died a slow, agonizing death from suffocation. The concept was difficult to wrap my head around, but to the Germans and the men working in the camp, it was all so routine.

The men went first, while the women and children stood outside, waiting. They could hear the sounds of agony from within the chamber, so even though they were told it was simply a shower, they knew better. But there was no way out. To try and turn back would mean being torn apart by dogs, or being beaten to death, or shot. The victims were like caged animals, not knowing what to do in their panic.

Not everyone died in the chamber, either. Amongst the heaps of blue and purple corpses were always a few survivors, gasping for air as the chamber doors opened. It didn't matter, though. They would either be shot, or thrown into the pits with all the corpses, where they would be burned alive.

So yes, I might sound flippant when I say being beaten on occasion wasn't so bad, but I mean it. I imagined myself in those chambers all the time. Smashed against thousands of others, terrified, and gasping for air. People panicking, doing anything to escape the dying masses. Pushing others to the floor, trying to climb up the fucking walls, anything to stay alive, to keep breathing, to escape the pain. In my nightmares I would be one of the survivors. I would go through the ten or twenty minutes of suffocation, only to burn to death on the pyres. To this day I still have those nightmares, even though Treblinka is far behind me.

So I found I could not complain about my arrangement with the Sergeant, which lasted for several months. But at some point he tired of me, or found someone better, or something. I never knew what exactly prompted my exile from his quarters, but I was sent to work in the camp.

He must have been a little fond of me, or at least thought I was a capable worker, because usually servants that were dismissed were simply shot. For a while I was sent to work on the team that sorted the clothing and belongings of the dead.

When there were transports coming into the camp, times were relatively good. Because, you see, those of us who were not killed had access to all the things the victims had brought with them, and that included food. Of course, we would all be killed if we were caught taking anything as we sorted through the piles of the items left behind. But that never stopped a single person. We ate like kings. Whenever we wanted something new to wear, we took it. We ferreted away any money or gold we thought would go unnoticed, because everyone had escape in mind, and to escape you needed money for food or bribery. It was all very practical. The rightful owners of these things were dead, so it all belonged to us, as long as we could get away with taking it. All we had to do was ignore our consciences. With the food and nice clothing we'd steal, most of us looked better during these times than we ever had on the outside, despite the fact that we had to keep our hair shaved off to prevent the spread of lice. As if that helped.

But there were lulls in the transports, and during these times we were malnourished, and still worked hard. If you did not sort the items fast enough, you were whipped. Even if you did sort the items fast enough, you were whipped. If you looked too happy, you were whipped. If you looked too sad, you were whipped. So on and so forth. You should see my scars.

At night you would lay in the bunks, too exhausted to move, but you could not sleep because the fleas and lice would constantly be biting you. The blankets we all had (which were also stolen from the transports) were always stained with blood, and had to be replaced on a weekly basis. 

If all that wasn't enough, a round of typhus swept through the camp, killing some, while simply incapacitating others. We jokingly called the disease “Treblinka”, and nearly everyone had it at some point, in varying levels. 

One evening we were in the barracks, settling in for the night, and suddenly I became convinced that the man in the bunk next to mine had stolen a piece of bread I'd hidden under my bedroll. I hadn't been feeling well all day, and the loss of this bread (which, in retrospect, I'm not even sure ever existed) enraged me. Though he was twice my size I tried to attack the accused, and was mercifully pulled away by some of the other men before I could land a blow. The man I'd accused was not known for his kindness or patience, and anyone he'd ever fought had come out of it with a few missing teeth. The men who'd stopped me took one look at my face and felt my forehead. “He's got Treblinka,” they said. One of the symptoms was delirium, which was often one of the first symptoms of this particular strain. And so I was sent to the infirmary for a week... a week which I do not remember, for the most part.

I weaved in and out of consciousness, and when I was awake I had hallucinations of my mother. She'd come to me and put a cool cloth against my forehead, and when she'd leave again I'd cry out for her. When my fever finally broke I noticed the odd looks I received from the men in the other bunks, and I couldn't quite tell if it was pity or annoyance. I assume the latter, because when I went back to work everyone knew I'd cried for my dead mother while I was sick, and several of the men mocked me for it. Still, others seemed happy to see me back on my feet, so I ignored the jokes hurled at me. It's not as if I could have helped it, anyway, but I would think that since everyone there had lost all their loved ones as well, they might be a little more understanding. But compassion is hard to come by in a death camp, I suppose.

One morning at roll call, only a few weeks after my recovery, several men were selected to be transferred to the “second camp”.   
The way Treblinka worked was that the people selected to work there were “broken in” in the main camp. This was where the trains were unloaded, and we sorted through the belongings of the victims. The second camp was the death camp. The victims were sent there, down a path called the pipeline and into the gas chambers where they were killed. From there the bodies were disposed of, in mass graves at first, but at some point during my stay in Treblinka they had begun to burn them instead, a method that left the whole area covered in a thin layer of ash. The SS never sent workers directly from the trains to the death camp, because they realized early on that a person had to become numb to what was going on around them before they would be capable of such work. But they often made stupid choices when picking out new workers for that area, which was thoroughly demonstrated when one of the officers chose me. As if I had ever been able to ignore what was going on around me!

The officer pulled me out of line, and when I hesitated, he hit me over the head with his whip. I yelped and dashed forward to join the others who had been chosen, casting a wide-eyed look back at my companions who were staying behind. Those who went through the fence into the death camp never returned. Once you go through the fence, there is no change of clothes. There is no feast generously left behind by the dead. There are no spoils of war. There is nothing but corpses everywhere you look, and the ashes of the burnt victims on your skin and in your teeth.

We went through the fence reluctantly, but you can't exactly tell an SS officer that you don't want to go; that you don't think you're even capable of doing the work. You go, or you die, and you try not to think about the fact that once your usefulness has expired, you will as well.

Even when there were no transports coming in, which was more often than not that summer, there was always work to be done. Because, you see, the Nazis were trying to clean house a little. Everyone realized pretty early on that they were trying to cover their tracks, but who could stop them? Not us, certainly.

So what did that mean in the death camp? We had the unenviable task of digging up the corpses that had been buried earlier in the mass graves, and moving them over to the fires to be burned. I'm not talking about some nice, sun-bleached bones. I'm talking about half-rotted corpses, in varying stages of decomposition. Some were still recognizable to an extent: this man had blonde hair, this woman was pretty, this child was probably cute before someone smashed his face in. But many were... well, I'll let you imagine it, because it's too horrifying to talk about, even now.

And the stench... when you'd get off duty at the end of the day and you'd find a place to sleep on the barrack floor, you felt so fucking filthy that you wanted to light your skin on fire just so it would stop crawling. There was no escape from the stink of death, or the feel of rotting flesh against your skin.

And on top of that, you can't even imagine how many flies there were. Thousands of them swarming us at all times, laying eggs upon the corpses until you were practically knee-deep in maggots.

And when the transports came in, there were fresh corpses to dispose of. Suddenly I was the one throwing not-quite-dead people into the fires, and listening to them moan and scream with their last breaths. 

At one point we received one last transport from Warsaw. Later I would hear from others that these were the last survivors from an uprising that had taken place there. And though these people were quickly transformed from survivors to victims, they spread their story to anyone in the camp that would listen. Escape had been on the minds of everyone, of course, but this inspiration was what was needed to get everyone into gear. With only a few minimal supplies, these men and women had held off the Germans for a month. The Nazis had to burn down the entire ghetto to retrieve everyone. We were all impressed by those who were brave enough to stand up to the Nazis. The idea of an uprising in Treblinka was stronger than ever.

The transport had another effect on me, though. As I was pulling the bodies out of the gas chamber, I saw a few people I had known, or had seen on the streets. They were barely recognizable, since suffocation from the fumes turned everyone into a swollen, bluish-black mass, but occasionally when hoisting a body from the pile there would be that jolt of recognition. At one point I reached out for a woman's body, only to realize that she had been a friend of my mother's. I jerked away from her in surprise, tripping backwards over another corpse and landing on my ass. Of course there was an SS officer standing only a few feet away, and he was immediately upon me, whipping me savagely until I got back on my feet and returned to the pile of corpses.

At the end of that day I felt so sick that I spent an hour behind the barracks, crying so hard that it made me throw up. It was the first time I'd cried since entering Treblinka, but all I could think was that it could have been me, or someone in my family. Yet here I was, still alive and gracelessly disposing of the people I'd once known.

Throughout the year I had kept my head up, though I'm not sure how. I'm not the strongest person on the planet, and I've been known to be a bit sensitive at times... so it's not as if I wasn't bothered by all of this. Every day since I had arrived at Treblinka I was horrified by myself and by my surroundings. At night when I was trying to sleep, I'd keep thinking, “I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe this is my life now. What kind of person am I?”

But while I may be weak and sensitive, I'm also extremely tenacious. And just when I started to think that I'd had enough, and should just take the easy way out, rumors of an escape plan started flying around. So I stuck it out.

We only heard bits and pieces of what was going on in the main camp, but what we heard sounded promising. As the prisoner's revolt became better planned out, several men in the main camp broke into the munitions storage and stole some grenades, as well as some guns. Two of the guns were smuggled into our camp, and given to men who know how to shoot. Because communication was difficult between the two camps, it was hard to know exactly what was supposed to happen, but we were assured that those on the other side of the fence had it under control. So we waited.

On August 2nd, the plan came to fruition.

First there was the sound of a gunshot from the main camp, and then the sounds of explosions. A great cheer went up all over the camp, and one of the men on our side shot the SS officers who were guarding us. Then they broke down the gate into the main camp.

Utter chaos. Men are running everywhere, trying to avoid being shot or captured, and there are buildings on fire, and several bodies of guards sprawled here and there on the ground.

I have never been much on fighting, and I don't even know how to shoot a gun, but when I come across the body of one of the guards I hate most, I duck behind him to shield myself from any stray bullets, and steal his gun out of its holster. I figure that even if I can't shoot it properly, it might at least give me a way to defend myself. I tuck it into my belt, and take off running with the rest of the crowd. 

There are explosions all around, and more bodies on the ground as I get closer to the front of the camp. Building after building catches on fire, and the grenades are being hurled at any officers that come toward us.

Ahead there is the barbed wire fence, and we must climb over it carefully unless we want to become entangled. It is slow going for most, and it gives the men in the watchtowers enough time to pick many of my fellow prisoners off with their machine guns. I am lucky as I climb over, because either their attention has been drawn to another location, or they are reloading. All I know was that there is a momentary lull in the shooting, and I take that opportunity to scramble up the fence. My hands are cut on the wires as I launch myself over it, and I hear bullets zipping past me, close to my head, but I pay no mind to any of that, and I run off into the woods as fast as I can.

I know I am being pursued. I can hear the dogs in the distance, the shouting, the rattle of the machine guns. I don't care. I just keep going. Nothing will stop me but death itself.


End file.
